"It has been a exciting Tour de France for me. To be here is still incredible, even if I am not standing on the top of the podium. If I hadn’t won the Tour before, this would be the happiest day of my life. Not winning doesn’t make much difference for me. Of course it means I have even more motivation for next year, but I just enjoy the spirit of this sport as much as I have always done. We have a really good couple of years of TV ahead of us with the duels between Jonas and myself.
The attack on the Champs Elysées? That was funny! At some point we were sprinting against each other, the Ineos Grenadiers on the right side of the road and me on the left. Actually I had been talking to people a couple of kilometres before that to find out if somebody wanted to attack along with me. It was a funny coincidence that we wned up attacking at the same time from different sides of the road.
Jasper Philipsen is a very good friend of mine. I wish we still were on the same team. I’m very happy to see him win here in Paris.
My plans for the days ahead? I’m just so caught up in the moment. I guess I’ll celebrate a bit with my teammates, but it won’t be a long night since I’m already down to go the second stage of Le Tour Femmes and see my partner Urska [Zigart] race. She is a very good rider, even if she stills feels the pressure of racing a bit too much. I hope she will have a nice week of racing in France."
